Jack Clark's 1987 season was under-appreciated

On Tuesday evening there was a lively debate on Twitter which lasted into the early morning hours of yesterday on who, historically, Baseball Twitter would anoint to their All-Star Game. I believe this tweet was the genesis of the conversation. (I'm without an ironclad definition of "Baseball Twitter" but let's just assume any account that tweets frequently and near-exclusively about baseball is included.) Baseball Twitter, all of this from my own observation, typically holds an affinity towards lovable, fun players like Bartolo Colon, Jose Fernandez, and Rickey Henderson, as well as those capable of putting up otherworldly-like seasons, such as Barry Bonds or Bryce Harper.

Another category of players usually in the good graces of Baseball Twitter are those underappreciated by the masses - often guys whose true value might not be measured as well by traditional stats. Joey Votto, who for years has had to tolerate criticism from his own team's radio voice for simply getting on base at a higher rate than basically anyone else in the National League, probably meets this criteria. Although between 2008 and 2011, Votto hit 115 home runs and never batted below .297 so, when not injured, he usually looks just fine using any stat as a vantage point.

In 2015 Votto had a great season with 20.6% walk rate and reaching base at a .459 clip, which would have been the highest in the NL in seven years had Bryce Harper not squeaked by him at .460. Votto finished third in MVP voting behind Harper and Paul Goldschmidt, which was fair, but the Reds were dreadful and since Votto didn't lead the league in any of the major batting categories few are likely to remember his season outside of those who read blogs such as this or listen to Effectively Wild.

All of this leads to Jack Clark, who may have been despised by Baseball Twitter. He was never a lovable guy. His post-baseball days have been spent filling the role of a baseball crank. (I guess here's where Clark and Baseball Twitter intersect again.) He not that long ago still held a grudge against the 80s Mets. And as a radio host, he famously, belligerently, and stupidly accused Albert Pujols of using PEDs before backtracking when Pujols decided he was going to do more than just take offense to the accusation.

He was too injured and never quite good enough to put up the type of stats that would break baseball. In his 18-year career, he only saw 600+ plate appearances three times. He was left off the 1987 World Series roster with a severely sprained right ankle, which I consider to be nearly as big of a what-if as the Denkinger call. In all, he only played 322 total games wearing the Birds on the Bat (and was worth 10.2 fWAR), which is astounding given that they're the team he's most often associated with.

But in 1987 he also had an under-appreciated season that deserves another look. Like Votto, Clark that season finished third in MVP voting (behind Andre Dawson and Ozzie Smith) so he hardly went unrecognized but it was a more interesting season than likely many people realize.

In 1987, Clark (.286/.459/.597 and 176 wRC+) was the one outlier of Whiteyball in that he could actually hit home runs, 35 of them, in fact. Terry Pendleton was second on the team with 12 - and this was a season when many thought the ball was juiced. (There were 4,458 home runs hit in MLB in 1987 - 645 more than any other season in the 80s.)

It wasn't necessarily a problem exclusive to Whiteyball, the entire organization had a power drought both before and after Clark's stint with the team. During the Atlanta Braves recent stumble through an inept homerless streak, the not-so-fun fact that the 1991 Cardinals once went 18 games without a home run made the rounds. That entire team only hit 68 home runs and Todd Zeile was the only player to reach double digit totals. He hit 11.

Between 1950 and 1997, not a single Cardinal hit more home runs in a season than Clark's 35 in 1987. (And it's worth pointing out that the original dimensions of Busch Memorial Stadium were 414 ft to center and 386 ft to the alleys before the fences were moved in in the early 90s.) In fact, the only other Cardinals to reach 30 home runs during this near-50 year span were Stan Musial (1951 - 32 HRs; 1953 - 30; 1954 - 35; 1955 - 33), Ken Boyer (1960 - 32); Dick Allen (1970 - 34); Ron Gant (1996 - 30); and Ray Lankford (1997 - 31). Of course everything changed when Mark McGwire showed up at the tail-end of 1997 and then doubled Clark's 1987 home run output in one season.

But per the slash line above, Clark's greater skill that year, like Votto, was in reaching base. He struck out a lot (24.9% of the time), he had an angry, aggressive swing, but he also drew walks at a historic rate. Going back the last 50 seasons to 1966, here are the 20 best walk rates in the NL for players with at least 500 plate appearances per season:

Literally only Bonds (x4) has been better, and per #9 above, this was not a flukey season from Clark, it was most certainly a skill. (Two other things: Jimmy Wynn was criminally underrated. And Bonds - my goodness.)

Using the same criteria as above, here's where Clark's 1987 season ranks in on-base percentage:

Look at that list. It's filled with a Hall of Famer (Morgan), should-be Hall of Famers (Bonds, McGwire, Sheffield, Bagwell), will be Hall of Famers (Jones, Pujols), quite possibly will be Hall of Famers (Harper, Votto), certainly deserve consideration to be Hall of Famers (Helton, Walker), and Clark.

Clark's various injuries kept him from consistently having these types of productive seasons and likely kept him from being in the "certainly deserve consideration" category. When healthy, however, he was always dangerous and retired with a career .267/.379/.476 slash line and a wRC+ of 138, as well as one of the more interesting and arguably under-appreciated seasons of the last 50 years.

The stats from the charts above were from Baseball-Reference's Play Index and FanGraphs Leaderboards.